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Who was that masked man?

I recall that during the Republican primaries (doesn't that seem like just ages ago?) conservative commentators were claiming that the left wanted Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination. The often expressed opinion was that the Democrats considered Mitt Romney to be a known quantity with which they were so familiar that defeating him would pose no difficulty. In fact, if I remember this correctly, the candidate the left seemed to be the most concerned about was Newt Gingrich, I believe it was something about his debating skills. No matter which candidate the left really wanted, I do know that whenever one of the candidates rose to lead the pack, if it wasn't Mitt Romney, the main stream media landed on them with both feet. Since at one time or another, nearly every one of the candidates was the front runner, and ahead of Romney, it was an interesting process to watch. By the way, even at this late date, I've still not seen any proof of all the allegations against Herman Cain. Odd how a blue dress with actual DNA (disgusting) on it isn't enough proof to satisfy the left when a progressive politician is involved. On the other hand, apparently when a conservative is center stage, unproven allegations are more than enough to put the main stream media in full attack mode.Just as a side note, since Mitt has revealed the amount of taxes he paid over the last few years, I’m waiting for the apology from Harry Reid. You remember Harry; he was the one who said he had information that Mitt Romney had paid zero taxes during that same time period. Oddly, the main stream media seems to have forgotten all about Mr. Reid's statements, which have now been proven to be untrue. I guess the most generous interpretation of that would be that Mr. Reid was "misinformed". Since I'm not a member of the left, and they don't let me in on their planning sessions, even though I think they did had a preference for running against Mitt Romney, I have no real knowledge or proof of it. I do know that they were salivating over the thought of running against a candidate who had instituted a statewide health care system in the state of Massachusetts. More about that later. While I am pretty sure that the Democrats did get their preferred opponent in the previous election (McCain), as I said, I don't know if it's true or not that this time around they wanted Mitt Romney. If it is true, and I think it is, that the left in general, and Obama in particular wanted Mitt Romney to be the opponent this time around, I would like to offer them some advice. I think this may have just dawned on them, but the wisdom I would like to share with them is to be careful what you wish for. They did get Mitt Romney as their opponent, and apparently they didn't know him as well as they thought they did. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the right (include me in there) is a little surprised too. In the aftermath of the first Presidential debate, which covered important topics such as government spending, taxes, energy independence, unemployment, and healthcare among other things, Obama is traveling the country speaking about…, Big Bird. I'll get back to Big Bird in a moment, but in fairness, I have to admit that The Obama is also talking about a couple of other things besides Big Bird.First, he has stated that the man who showed up at the debate wasn't Mitt Romney. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean. What I find pretty amusing about it is that no matter what he intends people to take from his statement that "that wasn't Mitt Romney", it sounds to me a lot like he's asking "who was that masked man?" Or maybe what he really means is "did anybody get the number of that truck that just ran me down?" Say, do you think that about now he is wondering if it might not have been better to debate Newt after all?Secondly, he (Obama) is also still talking about the mythical tax break companies get for shipping their operations overseas. Apparently, even when he is publicly informed in front of fifty to sixty million people that something doesn't exist, that's not enough to convince him to stop trying to tell people it does. I wonder if he thinks that the I.R.S. has a form 666, deduction for abandoning intrusive, over regulatory central governments? If all Obama can come up with from that debate is Big Bird, "Mitt, was mean to me", and a non-existent tax deduction, maybe he should go ahead and stick with Big Bird. However, if he wants to concentrate on Big Bird becoming road kill on the highway to smaller government, there is a little more to it than what came up at the debate. First of all, Big Bird is neither an innocent bystander, nor collateral damage. If you will think back to the Chick-fil-A controversy, the Muppets were very public about severing any and all ties with Chick-fil-A. You would think a chicken would be a little more careful about taking on Chick-fil-A (sorry, couldn't help myself). Anyway, the point isn't that there is a difference of opinion between the Muppets and Chick-fil-A, but rather that when they entered the arena of public opinion, like it or not, they became players in that same arena.Additionally, despite what Obama says, I seriously doubt that cutting funding to PBS is going to do a lot of damage to the Muppets. It's far more likely that they will actually do better without help from the government than they do with it. We should all spend some time thinking about that and what it implies for the rest of our society.A lot of the people on the left (meaning most of the main stream media) are vocally and frequently asking why Obama didn't bring up Bain Capital and the "forty seven percent" remark that Romney made. I promised above to get back to Romney's Massachusetts health care program, which I’m going to go ahead and label Romneycare, and it's central to why Obama did not mention the above items.We have reached a point in the United States where the left and right can find very little to agree on. Be that as it may, both sides thought the worst thing in Mitt Romney's past was the fact that he was the architect of something very similar to Obamacare. The left liked that because they figured it would give them a powerful weapon against Romney, and prevent him from using Obamacare against Obama. The right didn't like it for the same reasons plus it might also him less ardent in his stated desire to repeal Obamacare.In other words, Romneycare has been viewed by both sides as an anchor around Romney's neck and the absolute worst thing in his entire record. So what does that have to do with Obama's failure to bring up the forty seven percent remark and Bain Capital? This: Obama did bring up Romneycare, clearly intending to score points and undercut Mitt Romney. How did that work out? Romney took Obama's remarks concerning Romneycare, smiled, and proceeded to pin The Barack's ears back with that very topic. In my opinion, the reason that Obama didn't bring up the other items is that after being "handed his head" over Romneycare, he had no desire to find out what Mitt had in store for him on the other issues.After the first debate, I have to wonder if the left actually accidentally cooperated in giving the right the most conservative and unapologetic candidate since Ronald Reagan.Bruce Kreitler is the author of Obamageddon (the Culmination of the Progressive Looting of America) and posts this and other articles at BruceKreitler.com.